The ongoing development of data networks often involves provisioning and improving connectivity in an ever widening range of service environments. For example, stadiums, convention centers and sprawling outdoor spaces (e.g., for festivals, concerts, rallies, sporting events, etc.) are particularly challenging venues for provisioning network access.
Venues of this type are typically characterized by a service area that can spread throughout large fields, parks, in and around stadiums, and/or within cavernous convention halls. It is difficult to provide reliable WiFi data networking or even cellular data networking within these types of service areas because of the transitory nature of pockets of high demand. The few cellular network base-stations close to such a venue are often overloaded by the density and volume of client devices that are carried by fluidly moving crowds. Prior solutions include erecting temporary WiFi access point towers (or poles) to increase coverage. But access point towers obstruct views and/or are hazards for large crowds that tend to move in unpredictable patterns—especially in emergencies. WiFi access point towers are also fixed in-place for the duration of an event, and cannot provide wireless coverage that tracks fluidly moving crowds and/or be moved to mitigate interference produced by temporary signal blockers, reflectors and/or environmental changes. Accordingly, provisioning WiFi coverage in this manner is undesirable because the placement of WiFi access point towers is difficult and cumbersome to change once an event starts. In order to move a WiFi access point tower a portion of an event space has to be cleared and the event disrupted—which is generally unacceptable to event organizers. So instead, previously available solutions rely on predicting the placement for WiFi access point towers before an event starts, which is difficult in view of the unpredictable nature of crowd movement. Additionally, there can be areas of IoT (Internet of Things) sensor deployment in these venues where providing terrestrial-based network coverage is problematic because of the lack of line-of-sight links to WiFi access point towers from sensors within the venue.
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